babies

Let's talk about babies for a moment. I'm not sure if the same is true where you live, but in Sudbury it seems that baby fever has taken over. This past weekend was our annual summer music festival and everyone we know was there with their babies that were all more or less born within the last 3 years. It was strange. Us childless folk used to be the majority and now, well we are horribly outnumbered. I suppose it was inevitable that the balance would flip out of our favour eventually but never was the reality of that flip more evident than this weekend.

Me, I've never been a baby person. Just ask my poor mother. She's had to listen to me swear up and down for years that a baby was just something that would never happen for me. I think she hoped I would marry a man so hungry for babies that I'd start churning them out just for him. Well that didn't happen either. I married a man just as content with his lifestyle as I am. Admittedly, we're selfish and are indeed so accustomed to our lifestyle that babies just seem like something that would only cramp our style. Me, I also fear change. Fear being the lightest word I can use. As a result, it becomes less of an issue of wanting kids than being convinced you'd just be a terrible mother. Am I so self-indulgent and selfish that my child would only suffer in the long run when I couldn't adapt? How can I have a baby and still not miss episodes of America's Next Top Model? Would they grow up to write a book about how they were ignored as a child and as a result became an axe murderer? Would my child end up like those awful annoying teenagers I see downtown? These are the things I think about when people bring up babies. These are the things that give me chest pains. These are the things that send me screaming in the other direction.

Still, the older I get, I do get more concerned about having someone around to take care of me when I get old. Someone's got to feed me my strained peas and my nieces are going to have their hands full with their own old parents. I'm likely to get stuck with some apathetic orderly in a nursing home. So yes, having someone else around to do that for me is somewhat reassuring.

And some of them, well they're just plain adorable. Take my niece Melissa. If I could be guaranteed they'd come out with a mug like hers, I'd probably have 10.

Like most women, I also have my mother playing the baby card every chance she gets. Although she has 4 grandchildren already, she claims it's different when it's your daughter and her favourite saying has become "Just have one! For me!" So here's yet another dilemma: if I never cave and have babies she'll be sad forever. If I ever do have a baby, what else will she think she can get me to do by hounding me? Will I spend the rest of my life hearing "I got you to have a baby! I got you to have a baby!" One never knows. Although she has recently put free child care on the table in the hopes of upping her game. Well played mama, well played....

In the meantime, we'll probably get another dog. Dogs are like babies in a lot of ways except you can leave them home alone with food on the floor. Babies, well I hear that's frowned upon.